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Project Title:
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Competitiveness and Workforce Needs of U.S. Industry
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PIN:
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STEP-Q-05-03-A
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Major Unit:
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Sub Unit:
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Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy
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RSO:
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Merrill, Steve
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Subject/Focus Area:
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Project Scope
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Congress in the FY 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Act asked the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) to examine diverse industrial sectors, assess prospects for the international distribution of high-value added activities in those industries, and identify corresponding changes in workforce composition, location, and management.
Using the methodology of a previous study of 11 industrial sectors, a committee will select a number of manufacturing and service industries, develop an analytical framework, and commission studies of each of these industries by leading academic experts.
As the STEP Board articulated in two 1999 studies, U.S. Industry in 2000: Studies in Competitive Performance and Securing America's Industrial Strength, the country's industrial performance and job creation depends on the conditions underlying the growth of emerging industries and capabilities to capitalize on technologies that may generate new industries in the future. These include investments in long-range research in all principal fields of science and engineering, the production and attraction from abroad of scientists, engineers, and other skilled professionals, the availability of capital for new ventures, and other macroeconomic and microeconomic policies that will determine the economy's capacity to create new jobs in new and transformed industries faster than globalization redistributes them.
In spite of the relatively short elapsed time since STEP's comparative industry studies were completed in the late 1990s new or newly apparent developments argue for taking a new serious look at the foundations of U.S. competitiveness in the global economy and the implications for employment:
- The fusion of manufacturing and services into complex networks and the opening up of service sectors not thought to be subject to international competition and job re-location;
- The emergence of new competitors, especially China and India;
- Retrenchment in long-range industrial research, continued public under-funding of research in the physical sciences, and engineering, and new evidence from the National Science Foundation that for the first time points to a decline in the productivity of U.S. scientific research.
- The emergence of stiff international competition for U.S. higher education institutions, not only for graduate students but also for industry R&D support.
- New business models and technologies that have combined to change the structure of the economy and basis of corporate performance in ways that traditional economic statistics and accounting rules inadequately capture.
The studies will be undertaken primarily by individuals associated with the Industry Centers sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The centers have as part of their mission working with firms in their industries and trade associations and exploiting information not available from public sources.
A series of conferences and workshops will gather additional data, primarily from representatives of the industries, and help disseminate the products of the project, which will include a collection of the case studies and conference summaries.
The case studies were presented at a conference in April 2006 and published in 2008 as Innovation in Global Industries: U.S. Firms Competing in a New World (Collected Studies).
As part of the study, in September 2007 the committee hosted a conference in Washington, D.C., entitled The Dragon and the Elephant: Understanding the Development of Innovation Capacity in China and India. A summary of this conference will also be produced.
The Project is sponsored by the United States Department of Education, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Technology Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Project Start Date: March 1, 2006
Report: A final report in the form of a conference summary will be issued approximately 45 months after the project's start date
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Project Duration:
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45 months
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